Parker's Folly Read Online Free Page B

most of the workers thought the ship an old eccentric’s fantasy or a prop for a new outer space TV series. Some of them referred to the vessel as Parker's Folly, though never in earshot of Parker. Very few of the workers actually expected the thing to ever fly, or even leave the hangar, for that matter. Little did they know how wrong they were.
    Not that their doubts were unjustified, the aft end contained no giant rocket engines like the now defunct space shuttle or the even older Saturn 5 rockets that had launched astronauts to the moon. After a modest tapering, the ship ended in a slightly convex, featureless expanse of metal. There were no nozzles, no orifices, nothing to suggest an outlet for hot rocket gasses. The ship's aft was more like a gigantic boat-tailed artillery round, and for much the same reasons.
    Parker's Folly was intended to be a spaceship, but a spaceship that could readily enter and leave a planetary atmosphere. It was what advanced rocket designers would call a SSO—single stage to orbit. There were no parts to be discarded during ascent or material to be lost to ablation on reentry, what went up came back down all in one piece. That was how the few people in the know expected the ship to function.
    Among those in the know were TK, the Captain and Lt. Curtis, along with a handful of engineers. If Parker's Folly worked as planned it would change everything. No more rockets rising on columns of fire, throwing away large expensive chunks of themselves while expending millions of pounds of fuel to place a few thousand pounds of payload into orbit. At least that is what they all fervently hoped.
    TK reached out and ran his hand across the curving hull above him in a loving caress. Then his high-tech wheelchair suddenly whipped about, rotating in place to face his ship's captain and first officer. “I got a bad feeling about this. If the news media knows about our little project there's sure to be some government snoops coming around. Damn government always looking for something to steal from honest folk.”
    Captain Sutton and Lt. Curtis stood at parade rest, both with their hands clasped behind their backs—they had heard TK's opinions about the government many times before.
    “I'm going to go handle the busybodies from the fourth estate,” the old man continued. “You two get the Folly ready to fly, and I mean now!”
    His use of the name Folly for the ship caused Curtis to blink and the Captain to raise his eyebrows questioningly.
    “What? You think I don't know what the workers call her? Well I've got no better name for her than Parker's Folly and it will just help rub their noses in it when she blasts outa' here.” Without further comment he again pivoted his electric wheelchair in place and headed off toward the exit ramp and the path back to the ranch house a half mile away.
    “Well,” said the Captain, “I believe we have been given 'prepare for imminent departure' orders. We still need to run a successful full-power system test—hopefully Dr. Gupta has the muonium problem solved.”
    “I'll head back to the engine room and inform him we are about to run another test,” replied the First Officer. Sutton nodded tacit approval as they walked up the ramp to the forward airlock together. Entering the ship, she headed aft through officer country while the Captain climbed up a level to the bridge.
    * * * * *
    Upon reaching the aft engineering spaces, Curtis sighted the slender form of Dr. Rajiv Gupta hunched over a glowing display panel. Gupta, who had PhDs in both Chemistry and Physics, was, for lack of a better title, the ship's chief engineer. If anyone understood how the mysterious devices in the aft portion of the ship functioned it was Rajiv.
    His dark skin, black hair and dark brown eyes reflected his Indian heritage, though he had been born in San Jose. As with many children of immigrants, Rajiv was an academic overachiever, earning degrees from Stanford (elemental particle physics)